Four Arrested in Polk County Racketeering Scheme Affecting Target Stores, Grady Judd Reports
A racketeering enterprise that is believed to have included hundreds of thousands of dollars has been discovered in Polk County.
A total of four individuals are being investigated for allegedly defrauding unsuspecting consumers, fraudulently purchasing discounted products, and returning counterfeit merchandise at Target shops located around the Tampa Bay area.
“It’s brilliant, it’s illegal and these folks are facing 30 years in prison,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd stated.
According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, an investigation was initiated in January 2024, following the discovery that two Target employees in North Lakeland had been under suspicion of providing customers with significant discounts.
“And when I say deep discounts, we’re talking 90%, 66%, 80%,” Judd stated.
An affidavit states that the suspects offered Apple watches and Starbucks beverages as a form of bribery to two individual workers working at Target.
The four suspects, Yun Zheng, Lin Chen, Haoyi Ren, and Hang Yang, were identified through the use of a paper trail of transactions and store surveillance video that was compiled over the course of the previous year.
According to the investigators, the suspects were making the purchases by fraudulently exploiting Target employee discount codes and Target gift cards before making the purchases.
A number of various phone scams were carried out on approximately a dozen victims, and according to an affidavit, the suspects received the Target gift cards through these frauds.
“They’re taking stolen cards, buying merchandise and getting a big discount,” Judd stated.
According to the sheriff’s office, they do not believe that the four suspects were the ones who were making the fraudulent phone calls. They suspect that there were additional individuals involved in the scam who were obtaining the gift cards and transferring them to Zheng, Chen, Ren, and Yang. This is something that the investigators believe happened.
“We believe that there is an organized system, even behind them,” Judd stated. “They’re too good at this.”
According to the documents filed with the court, the suspects were purchasing high-end electronic devices such as Bose headphones and Apple iPads.
“They apparently are sending this back to China, and they have a contact in China that is sending them knockoff stuff,” Judd stated. “So, then they take the knockoff stuff, they put it back in the package and rip Target off again when they return it.”
Judd stated that the suspects were stealing FedEx telephone numbers in order to send items to various sites in China.
According to the investigators, the defendants attempted to return counterfeit products to Target stores located around the Tampa Bay area; however, some of the returns were rejected.
During the course of this plan, Target incurred a total loss of more than 177,000 dollars, as stated in an affidavit.
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According to Judd, this scam was illegal on every level, and they are still conducting an investigation to find additional culprits, victims, and businesses that were targeted.
“We know that there are at least eight west coast Florida counties that have been affected by just this one team,” he stated. “We think there’s as much as a multi-million dollar event going on here.”
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The most recent arrest of Yang took place in Texas. In Pasco County, Zheng, Chen, and Ren were taken into custody in December. Yang made an appearance in Polk County court on Tuesday.
The charges against Zheng, Chen, Ren, and Yang include racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering.
With assistance from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and other Tampa Bay-area authorities, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office looked into this matter.